The Ganda Kingdom Land eviction threats are creating fear in Central govt

Written by SADAB KITATTA KAAYA & ALEX NSUBUGA

Last Updated: 27 February 2015

Part of Nsambya Police barracks

A number of landlords have secured court orders to evict government institutions and repossess their properties, The Observer has learnt.

The impending evictions follow government’s failure to pay ground rent arrears totaling billions of shillings to the landowners. The institutions that face eviction include public universities, hospitals, Uganda Prisons, Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute, schools and farm institutes, among others.

The embattled landlords include Kampala archdiocese, which is demanding more than $74m (Shs 218bn) over the land currently housing Nsambya police barracks. Leaders of the Catholic Church have been meeting President Museveni over the debt, especially after learning that government planned to give away the land to investors.

During their most recent meeting, church leaders told Museveni that they needed the money to prepare for Pope Francis’ anticipated visit to the country. Other units facing evictions include Buwama and Mityana police stations.

“The pre-colonial governments and first post-colonial governments entered into contractual agreements with privately- registered landlords, and took over their land due to its strategic location for the establishment of infrastructure for government institutions,” an official at the Lands ministry told The Observer this week.

CABINET PROBE

To address this looming quagmire, government recently set up a cabinet subcommittee chaired by the minister for Local Government, Adolf Mwesige. Other officials on the subcommittee are Bright Rwamirama, the state minister for Animal Industry; Daudi Migereko, the minister for Lands; and Henry Banyenzaki, the minister of state for Economic Monitoring in the President’s office, and a representative from the Uganda Land Commission.

On Wednesday, President Museveni told cabinet that government needed to move fast and avert what would amount to a crisis. He said there was need to renegotiate some of the agreements government signed with the owners of land, occupied by the affected public institutions. The matter was not concluded, our sources said, and was pushed to the next meeting scheduled for March 4.

Sources added that the Mwesige-led committee is expected to advise government on how it can avert the eviction. Migereko told The Observer yesterday that government had taken on short and medium-term strategies to address the problem.

“The problem has not been attended to for a long time but government has now realized that it is a serious issue and all efforts are being made to find a long-lasting solution,” the minister said.

“It [eviction] is an area of concern. Matters are still in cabinet. Cabinet is going to come out with a clear sustainable solution of land for government programmes and departments,” he said by telephone.

Auditor General John Muwanga recently accused district land boards and accounting officers of various government departments and agencies of failing to protect land under their control.

The auditor general said government officials were conniving with unscrupulous people to steal government land. Similar claims were made last year by Idah Nantaba, the minister of state for Lands, who accused some officials at the ministry of conniving with the mafias to grab government land.

Indeed, one of the mandates of the cabinet subcommittee will be to scrutinize reports that some of the people claiming to be owners of the land may in fact be “mafias” out to get land titles, which are later used to grab government land under unclear circumstances.

Rwamirama told us this week that they will reverse any decisions made by the Uganda Land Commission that gave land to private individuals under dubious circumstances.

During Wednesday’s cabinet meeting at State House Entebbe, Migereko is reported to have tabled documents that showed that the alleged mafias are indeed private landlords who want to take back their land from government.

RE-ENTERED

The Observer has learnt that government has already lost the Mukono district farm institute (DFI) land at Ntaawo, which was re-entered by Church of Uganda. The church has also secured court orders to re-enter part of the land on which Makerere University’s college of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Bio-security stands because government failed to pay more than Shs 333m in ground rent arrears.

An unnamed private landlord has also secured a court order to re-enter his land occupied by Mityana police station.The Observer has also seen documents indicating that government, through similar court orders, has lost part of Kawanda agricultural research station land at Ssenge in Wakiso district and Njeru stock farm, which was retaken by the Ham Mukasa family.

On May 9, 2014, in an attempt to avert the repossessions, Migereko wrote to Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka and Attorney General Peter Nyombi and urged them to intervene.

Without any responses from government, the landlords ran to courts and secured orders to repossess their land. Migereko has reportedly blocked the re-entries, forcing the landlords back to court to commit the commissioner for Land registration Sarah Kulata to civil prison for contempt of court.

He is still travelling in a private executive jet, but has a population at home of 90% walking barefoot.

Yet this Excellency may be trying to compete with Reagan and Golbachev to show that he, too, is an Excellency"

This is a verbatim extract of the speech Mr Museveni made on the steps of Uganda Parliament, after being sworn in as president on 26th Jan 1986.

Mr Museveni has just arrived in New York for this year's (2016) United Nations General Assembly meeting in the latest model of Gulf Stream 5 Executive Presidential Jet. This is more than 30 years when he made that speech!

Not only has he left home a barefoot population, but some are dying of hunger! 84% youth are unemployed; 19 women are dying, needlessly, in childbirth daily; young doctors (interns) are on strike because they aren't paid; an epidemic of jiggers looms in parts of the country; 75% children drop out of primary schools due to pathetic state of education standards etc, etc.

In 1986, I, too, stood at the stairs of parliament as Mr M7 swore-in as president and made that speech. Back then, we were found of saying, rightly, that shame is a revolutionary sentiment.

I'll not just be ashamed at having been a part of the "pathetic spectacle" that we continue to witness, I'll not rest until it's overcome. That's the least that I can do.

The exensive

Internet Revolution should get cheaper for the African poor citizens on the African continent:

SUNDAY, 13 DECEMBER 2015

BY INDEPENDENT REPORTER

December 4. 2016 INDEPENDENT/JIMMY SIYA

Cost of unlimited Internet access in Kampala could drop to as low as Shs 1,000 a day

Only a small fraction of Ugandans is connected to the Internet, with the vast majority losing out on the immense opportunities that the Internet is providing to billions of people worldwide.

Currently, the total number of internet users in Uganda is estimated at just over 6.8 million in a population of about 40 million. Compared with the voice penetration of 53%, data penetration is still very low at just 25%, according to data from the Uganda Communications Commission.

The poor accessibility rates are mainly attributed to high cost and poor network coverage. However, this is now bound to change for the better after technology giant Google launched Project Link in Uganda to bring faster and world-class Internet services.

Following the successful completion of a metro fiber network in Kampala city, the company has launched a Wi-Fi ‘hotzone’ network to improve the quality and affordability of wireless access, geared towards meeting the bandwidth demands of Kampala’s growing number of smart phone owners. In partnership with Roke Telecom, more than 100 hotzones, dubbed ‘Rokespots,’ have been launched around Kampala where users can access affordable and high speed mobile internet connections.

In recent years, telecom giants MTN Uganda, Airtel, Smile telecom, Africell and Vodafone have also invested heavily in setting up 4G infrastructure. MTN Uganda in particular has already unveiled its extensive 4G network countrywide, extending the latest broadband technology to major towns – totaling more than 75 4G network sites, in addition to thousands of 2G and 3G.

Google is also venturing into providing wholesale last-mile Wi-Fi access with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) like MTN to leverage on its fibre infrastructure to bring high-quality Wi-Fi to homeowners, small businesses and mobile users on-the-go.

Speaking at the launch on Dec.03, 2015, Roke Telkom officials said the initiative is helping to connect more people to fast and affordable broadband Internet.

The Wi-Fi hotzone network is helping to equip MNOs and ISPs with shared infrastructure that they desperate need to deliver improved services to end users. Ela Beres, who heads the Wi-Fi effort, said with the help of Project Link’s new Wi-Fi hotzone network, ISPs around Kampala would have access to shared infrastructure that can help them enhance their Wi-Fi services and meet the bandwidth needs of the city dwellers. He added that local providers can use the new network to bring Wi-Fi to people on-the-go in the city’s busiest locations such as the taxi parks, hostels, shopping malls, pubs, restaurants and arcades.

Roger Sekaziga, the Roke Telkcom CEO, said Uganda has lately experienced phenomenal growth in demand for Internet, fuelled by the advent of low-cost smart phones.

“Project Link’s Wi-Fi network allows us to deliver cheaper and more reliable Wi-Fi service to a quickly-growing, often underserved market segment,” he added. To owners of the facilities, cheap high speed internet offers more opportunities for customers. The service has different price categories, ranging from Shs 1,000 per day to Shs 18,000 per month.

Officials said going forward, the company plans to install wifi on all public transport vehicles. For Roke Telkom, which has been in operation for over ten years, the partnership with Google to implement Project Link could give it a big headway in the data market place. Google, which started as a search engine over two decades ago, has over the years emerged as a global technology giant. Its push in developing countries has seen it test out innovative ways of ameliorating connectivity challenges. With the introduction of 3G and LTE networks, the company is targeting to provide the ‘last-mile’ link to connect remote locations to the fiber networks that connect countries and whole continents.

Since Uganda was connected to the sea cables seven years ago, prices of international bandwidth have fallen compared to the last decade, but the retail tariffs of broadband have remained relatively out of reach for millions of potential internet users.

But as mobile phone devices evolve thus giving consumers various services beyond voice and text messages, data has over time become a key frontier for telecom companies as consumers take advantage of cheaper means of communication over more convenient social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and to deliver audio, video, and other media content over the Internet.

On a wider scale, the implementers of Project Link see it as causing a revolution in how whole industries and sectors operate and how services are provided to the citizens.- See more at: http://www.

independent.co.ug

Nb

Poor African governments seem to find it as a way of collecting easy money as tax from this technology.

Milking the cow without giving it pasture.

Ongwen, the Freedom fighter or The modern African Liberation bush fighter. His trial now is under the I.C.Court. This European Court of universal human rights has named three judges to preside over this African case.

Mr Ongwen of the Acholi tribe of Northern Uganda.

By Yasiin Mugerwa

Posted Thursday, January 22 2015

Kampala, Uganda-

A day after Dominic Ongwen, a top Christian-Catholic LRA commander, was transferred to The Hague to face charges for a variety of war crimes, the International Criminal Court named three high profile judges to handle his trial.

The ICC presidency yesterday named a Bulgarian judge with a decade-long experience in international criminal law, a Belgian judge with a background in international and comparative criminal law, and an experienced Italian prosecutor to form a three-person coram.

Daily Monitor understands that one of the Judges (Trendafilova) was the Presiding Judge in the previous proceedings in the situations of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the neighbouring Kenya; the Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo and the Prosecutor v. William Ruto et al, respectively.

The government this week announced that international lawyers had approached it showing interest to represent Ongwen, who recently surrendered to the American troops in Central African Republic.

ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda yesterday said in a statement, Ongwen’s transfer to The Hague brings the court one step closer to ending the LRA’s reign of terror in the African Great Lakes region.

She said the LRA has reportedly killed tens of thousands and displaced millions of people, terrorised civilians, abducted children and forced them to kill and serve as sex slaves. They have hacked off limbs and horribly disfigured men, women and children.

“My investigation demonstrates that Dominic Ongwen served as a high ranking commander within the LRA and that he is amongst those who bear the greatest responsibility for crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC,” Ms Fatou Bensouda stated.

She added: “I urge all others [rebels] that still remain within LRA ranks to abandon violence; stop committing crimes, and follow the bold steps of others before you,”

Governments hailed

On behalf of the Court, the Registrar of the ICC, Mr Herman von Hebel ,yesterday applauded Ongwen’s transfer to The Hague and sought to assure the victims of the 21-year-insurgency in northern Uganda that in order to dispense justice all efforts will made to ensure that they get a lawyer who will tell their story.

He saluted “the persistent efforts” of the government of Uganda, the government of the Central African Republic, the Uganda People’s Defense Force, the African Union Regional Task Force who all put pressure on the rebels until Ongwen’s surrender.

We shall not cater for Ongwen’s children - ICC:

Ongwen’s relatives at their home in Coo-rom village in Lamgoi Sub-county.

PHOTO BY JULIUS OCUNGI

By JULIUS OCUNGI

Posted Saturday, February 7 2015

AT GULU, UGANDA.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Field Outreach Coordinator for Kenya and Uganda, Ms Maria Mabinty Kamara, has rejected calls by relatives of indicted LRA commander Dominic Ongwen to cater for his children.

Ms Kamara was responding to a question during a press briefing in Gulu Town on Wednesday on whether the ICC would help Ongwen’s family. She said ICC can only, at an appropriate time under the rules of the court, facilitate the family to visit Ongwen at The Hague.

Ongwen is among the top five LRA commanders who were indicted by the ICC in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Others are LRA leader Joseph Kony and his deputies: Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, and Raska Lukwiya.

Ongwen, who surrendered early last month in Central African Republic (CAR), appeared in the dock at the ICC on January 26, where seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes were read against him.

His relatives had earlier asked the Uganda government and ICC to cater for his children.

One of his brothers, Mr Christopher Kilama, said the family was overwhelmed with the burden of taking care of Ongwen’s four children because they have their own.

However, Ms Kamara said the ICC has a trust fund which has been providing interim assistance to victims of the LRA war but not their relatives. She said the ICC has established at least 18 projects in the region under the Victims Trust Fund.

“Over 40 million people in the region benefited from the trust fund. Some of them were provided with microfinance, prosthetic, and plastic surgery, especially for mutilated victims,” said Ms Kamara.

She said Mr Ongwen’s relatives can only be assisted to visit him at The Hague at an appropriate time.

who is ongwen?

• Said to have been abducted by LRA, aged 10, as he walked to school in northern Uganda

• Rose to become a top commander

• Accused of crimes against humanity, including enslavement

• ICC issued arrest warrant in 2005

• Rumoured to have been killed in the same year

• US offered $5m (£3.3m) reward for information leading to his arrest in 2013.

Kidnapped Ethiopian kids could be sold

SIX months after their kidnapping, hopes are diminishing more than 60 children armed militias abducted from Ethiopia will be rescued.

They are believed to have been forcibly moved across the border to South Sudan after their abduction from the Gambella region west of Ethiopia.

It is feared the 68 children, all aged below 13, are at risk of being sold and exploited by their captors. Some 26 children from the Anywa ethnic minority abducted in previous raids earlier are also still unaccounted for.

“The abduction and ensuing sale and exploitation of children are abhorrent violations of the rights of the child,” said the United Nations special rapporteur on the sale of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

Worryingly, there is a growing pattern of armed groups targeting civilians, and in particular children, with a complete disregard for international humanitarian law and in complete impunity.

In Gambella, the militants kidnapped 159 children in an attack that left 208 people dead, 80 wounded and some 2 000 cattle stolen.

However, 91 children were rescued through the concerted efforts of Ethiopian and South Sudanese authorities. However, since then, rescue operations have reportedly stopped.

UN special rapporteur on summary executions, Agnes Callamard, urged both countries to address ethnic violence and prevent the recurrence of such attacks.

The UN experts urged the international community to assist both governments in search of the kidnapped children and necessary support to victims.

Parents who lost a newborn baby girl at Mulago have sued the national government referral hospital.

Friday, 03 October 2014

Written by Derrick Kiyonga

The Attorney General Peter Nyombi, Dr Byarugaba Baterana, the executive director of Mulago hospital, and Fred Lubega, the doctor who took care of the child’s mother, are listed as respondents. In the suit filed at the High court civil division, Gorrett Kajumba and Samuel Egesa, the parents of the missing baby, claim that as result of the negligent actions of the respondents, the baby was stolen from the hospital in December 2012.

Through Kinobe, Mutyaba and Turinawe Advocates, the couple claim that on December 3, 2012, Kajumba was admitted to Mulago hospital in maternity ward 5BP.

“That the first plaintiff [Kajumba] gave birth by caesarean section to a baby girl on the fourth day of December 2012, who was alive, cried and was even shown to the first plaintiff in the theatre before she was taken away by the midwives,” the plaint partly reads.

After the birth of the baby, the parents say the midwife asked Kajumba whether she had an attendant, to which she said no.

“That the midwives scolded her [Kajumba] and told her that they would take her baby to the nursery where the first plaintiff would find her after [leaving] the theatre,” the couple claims.

When she came from the theatre and asked to see her baby, Kajumba says the nurses ignored her.

“That on the Thursday the 10th of December 2012, the first plaintiff in excruciating pain walked to the special care unit where the baby had been taken and sought to see her child and breastfeed her….But the nurse at the special care unit…denied her access to the special care unit and told her to go back to the ward and get a form from the nurses to show that she had given birth,” they claim.

The parents say that the same nurse in total disregard of Kajumba’s emotions and physical wellbeing shouted at her. She told her that her child had died the day before December 4, 2012. Subsequently, Kajumba asked for the child’s body and she was told it had been buried.

“That the first plaintiff was further baffled that no medical personnel was explaining to her what had happened to her baby and who had given them permission to bury her baby without informing her,” they say.

The couple said Kajumba was discharged from the hospital without her baby. At home, Kajumba’s relatives read the medical documents. They found out that the discharge form indicated that the baby was alive and that Kajumba had been discharged with the girl.

Kajumba returned to Mulago where a certain doctor advised her to check with the mortuary for her baby.

“That at the mortuary the askari [gateman] helped the first plaintiff to ask for the death certificate showing that the plaintiff’s baby had died. There was no such certificate but the receptionist arrogantly told her that her child was long gone and there was nothing she could do about it,” they allege.

The parents claim that the matter was brought to the attention of the hospital director Baterana, who promised to investigate. Up to date, they claim, the director has not revealed the results of his investigations.

The parents say that since the incident happened, Kajumba has developed hypertension, migraine and stomach bloating. She cannot work, they say. Enock Kusasira, the hospital spokesperson, couldn’t be reached for comment. His known phone number was off.

Muliika advises the Uganda Parliament over the future of Constitutional making for the future of the Children and Grandchildren of this politically disturbed continent of Africa.

Publish Date: May 28, 2015

Dan Muliika and the Chairman of Evolution for Human Diginity Foundation,

secretary, Joseph Munyaneza and mobiliser Nyakojo Byaruhanga appeared

before the Parliament legal committee.

By Paul Lubwama

Members of Parliament on the Legal and parliamentary affairs committee have clashed with the chairperson of Evolution for Human Dignity, Dan Muliika who questioned their mandate to amend the constitution.

Muliika, the former Buganda Katikkiro who appeared before the committee to present views on the amendments asserted that members that parliament and political parties have usurped the citizens’ powers to have an input in the amendments.

He told the committee chaired by Kajara County MP Steven Tashobya that: “there is need to have a new constitution because the current one was amended with selfish interests of politicians.”

Members of the Parliament of Ruanda in Africa are to debate to allow Mr Kagame to seek a third term of rule:

What are the future ramification for the Children and Grand Children of this politically disturbed continent of Africa?

Publish Date: May 28, 2015

Mr Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda.

KIGALI - Rwanda's parliament is to debate changing the country's constitution in order to allow its strongman President Paul Kagame to stand for a third consecutive term in elections in 2017, an official said Wednesday.

The debate, set to take place over the next two months, was prompted by parliament being handed petitions signed by a total of two million people -- or roughly 17 percent of the population -- asking for the constitution to be changed, the head of the chamber, Donatilla Mukabalisa, told AFP.

The announcement comes amid a wider controversy on the African continent over leaders changing constitutions in order to stay in office.

Last year Burkina Faso's former president Blaise Compaore was chased out after trying to stay put, while Rwanda's southern neighbour, Burundi, has been wracked by weeks of civil unrest and experienced a coup attempt over President Pierre Nkurunziza's attempt to do the same.

But Mukabalisa said moves for Kagame to stay in office were different.

"We have received two million requests," she said, explaining that parliament has been receiving a number of what she insisted were spontaneous letters and petitions from individuals, groups or associations.

Kagame, 57, has been at the top of Rwandan politics since 1994, when an offensive by his ethnic Tutsi rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), put an end to a genocide by Hutu extremists that left an estimated 800,000 of his community dead.

He first served as minister of defence and vice president, and then took the presidency in 2003, winning 95 percent of the vote. He was re-elected in 2010 with a similarly resounding mandate.

Rwanda's constitution, however, does not allow for a third term so it would need to be modified.

Rwandan officials have strongly denied that it is Kagame who is seeking a third term, insisting that the president -- hailed by his supporters as a guarantor of post-genocide security and stability, as well as a champion of economic development -- enjoys popular demand for him to stay.

Popular demand or theatre?

According to Mukabalisa, the petitions were the result of this popular demand for Kagame to stay and not because of elaborate machinations by the ruling party.

"It is the people who have taken this initiative," she said. "They were not forced to do so in any way. When they express their wishes, we can see that they are doing so from the bottom of their hearts. It is not something that we dictate."

"If we look at where the country was in 1994 and where it is now, the development has been spectacular," she added.

Mukabalisa said the Rwandan parliament and senate, both of which are dominated by Kagame's RPF, would debate the matter between June 5 and August 4.

But Rene Mugenzi, a Rwandan human rights activists who lives in exile in London, dismissed the petitions as a "stage-managed" ruling party initiative designed to show to the world that Rwanda is undergoing "constitutional change demanded by the people" and that Kagame is not just another African dictator.

"The government has been going to every level of society to get people to sign a petition," he alleged, claiming that Rwandans were being forced to sign or else face the risk of losing their jobs or being socially excluded.

According to Rwanda observers, the RPF's political office gave the green light for public debate on the issue to start in December, with the RPF's network delivering the message that the constitution can be changed.